TODAY, SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN BECOMING SO POPULAR IN SOUTH AFRICA. Carmen: DETROIT'S LONG TROUBLED EMS SYSTEM IS ON A DRAMATIC REBOUND. Devin: THE CITY TAKING DELIVERY OF MORE THAN A DOZEN NEW AMBULANCE THAT IS ARE CHANGING THE LANDSCAPE FOR THE EMS SERVICE. Carmen: LET'S GO TO ROD MELONI FROM DETROIT WITH WHAT THE NEW SPECIALIZED VEHICLES MEAN TO THE CITY'S RESIDENTS. GOOD EVENING, ROD! Rod: GOOD EVENING! THIS IS EXCEPTIONALLY GOOD NEWS, BECAUSE WHAT THEY'RE SAYING IS THIS IS TAKING DETROIT FROM WORST TO FIRST, WHEN IT COMES TO AMBULANCES. NOT SO LONG AGO, THEY WOULD HAVE THREE RICKETY BROKEN DOWN AMBULANCES AND NOW THEY HAVE 23 HIGH-TECH VEHICLES. THEY'RE JUST AMAZING! IT'S AN IMPRESSIVE AND UNHEARD OF SIGHT IN THE CITY OF DETROIT IN AT LEAST A GENERATION, 13 BRAND SPANKING NEW ULTRA HIGH-TECH AMBULANCES, ROVING COMPUTERS, REALLY, SITTING IN A ROW, READY FOR ACTION. THESE ARE THE LAST OF THE PROMISED EMS VEHICLES FROM ROGER PENSKE AND OTHERS. MAYOR DAVE BING WAS ALL SMILES AS HE HANDED OFF THE KEYS TO THE RETIRING FIRE COMMISSIONER DONALD AUSTIN. [APPLAUSE] I BELIEVE WITH THE DELIVERY OF THESE VEHICLES, OUR RESPONSE TIME WILL GREATLY IMPROVE, AND I'M SURE WE'LL SAVE THE LIVES OF MANY CITIZENS HERE IN THE CITY OF DETROIT. Rod: FOR EMT CHIEF, IT'S A BANNER DAY BECAUSE HE BELIEVES THE HIGH-TECH TRUCKS PUT DETROIT EMS AMONG THE BEST EQUIPPED IN THE ENTIRE NATION. YOU CAN HAVE 400 TECHNICIANS BUT IF YOU HAVE THREE OR FOUR TRUCKS THAT DON'T RUN WELL, YOU WON'T ACCOMPLISH THE TASK. SO THIS IS THE NUMBER ONE GAME CHANGER. Rod: THERE IS A LEARNING CURVE, AND THE TECHNICIANS WHO ONE THEM HAVE LEARNING CURVES. WE'VE BEEN WORKING WITH THE MECHANICS THAT HAVE BEEN DOWN TO THE SHOP, GOING THROUGH THE MANUALS AND WALKING THEM THROUGH THE PROCESS. Rod: AND, OF COURSE, THE EMTs THEMSELVES HAVE HAD A BIG CHANGE BECAUSE YOU CAN'T JUST JUMP IN THESE THINGS, TURN THE KEY AND GO. YOU HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE COMPUTERS TO BOOT UP AND THEN YOU GO. SO THERE ARE ALL KINDS OF ADJUSTMENTS. THE CITY NOW OWNS THEM BUT MAKE SURE THEY STAY ON THE ROAD FOR

DETROIT -

Imagine the change in a place like rural China where they went from ox carts to bullet trains.

That is the kind of change Detroit is beginning to see and while it may have been significant culture shock for Chinese peasants, for Detroiters it is the kind of change that can make you feel somewhat optimistic about the city’s future; having Detroit run the way it ought to as opposed to the way it has during its devastating, two generation decline. Today showed us two different versions of how good old fashioned American ingenuity and high technology will be able to help life in Detroit improve at an accelerated pace.

The first was the delivery of 13 new ambulances. The city took delivery of 10 back in August and those have logged better than one hundred thousand miles since then. Those were built from scratch from existing Navistar platforms when Roger Penske and his friends ordered last February.

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This fleet of 13 trucks was built from scratch and took this long to get to the street. Roger Penske’s people told me today it usually takes eight months to build one of these high-tech behemoths and they put this order on the fast track knowing lives are at stake. Everyone involved from the mayor on down to the EMTs themselves say these vehicles will improve service, cut down on response time and improve the quality of service in a city where bad service or no service were the only options.

That may be a culture shock in itself, but a welcome one indeed. On an interesting note, when these ambulances were first announced they were held in trust, not given to the city by the car companies and other benefactors who donated $8 million to buy these ambulances and roughly 100 police cars. They, at that time, suspected bankruptcy was in the cards and did not want the city having possession of the vehicles or the money only to have it diverted elsewhere in the bankruptcy process.

Now that the bankruptcy is official the vehicles are now City of Detroit property and the city’s mechanics will work on them. This is a massive learning curve but one the Mayor’s office believes manageable, especially considering there are warrantees on the ambulances and the companies are working to train the city’s mechanics to be able to keep these vehicles on the road. The ambulances have a life expectancy of five to seven years and as the EMT union chief put it today "a major game changer."

LIFE AND LEGACY, HEAD TO CLICKONDETROIT.COM. THE BREAKING STORY IS ON THE HOME PAGE. Devin: VACANT HOMES AND SCHOOL BUILDINGS STRIPPED OF COPPER AND OTHER VALUABLES SPRAYING WATER FOR MONTHS AT A TIME, COSTING EVERYONE MONEY. Ruth: THE CITY ADMITTED THERE WAS NO EXCUSE FOR THE UNACCEPTABLE PROBLEM AND PROMISED TO GET ON TOP OF THE PROBLEM WHICH LOCAL 4 "DEFENDER" KEVIN DIETZ EXPOSED. Kevin: THE "DEFENDERS" EXPOSED THE MASSIVE AMOUNT OF WASTE DUE TO RUNNING WATER IN HOMES ACROSS THE CITY OF DETROIT. IN ABANDONED HOMES, BUILDINGS, AND SCHOOLS. IT FLOWS FREELY DAY AFTER DAY, WEEK AFTER WEEK, MONTH AFTER MONTH. THIEVES STEAL THE CORPS PIPES. WHEN WE CALLED, NO ONE CAME TO SHUT OFF THE WATER FOR MORE THAN SIX WEEKS, THE WATER GOES DOWN THE DRAIN AND YOU PAY FOR IT. TAP WATER ALL COMES FROM DETROIT AND THE WATER BILL HAS GONE UP 10% EVERY YEAR FOR TEN STRAIGHT YEARS. WHEN YOU SEE WATER BEING WASTED, IT'S MONEY STRAIGHT OUT OF YOUR WALLET. WE TOOK OUR FINDINGS TO THE TOP BOSS AT THE DETROIT WATER DEPARTMENT AND SHE AGREED THE SITUATION IS COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE AND PROMISED TO FIX IT. THE DEPARTMENT HAS AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT. MY COLLEAGUE ROD MELONI JOINS WITH US THAT PART OF THE STORY. ROD? Rod: IT IS THAT DIRTY LITTLE SECRET THAT SCRAPPERS COME INTO HOMES LIKE THIS ONE AND STEAL ALL THE COPPER PIPES AND HAVE THE WATER SPEWING IN THE BASEMENT. THE CITY SAID THEY HAVEN'T GOTTEN THEIR HANDS ON THE PROBLEM BUT ARE ON THE WAY. THE WATER WAS SPEWING, AND GIVING OFF WATER AT 5 GALLONS A MINUTE. THE CASH REGISTER RINGING, BLASTING FOR MONTHS AT A TIME W THE BUREAUCRACY SO QUICK, ON NO ONE COULD GET THE WORD TO WORK CREWS TO SHUT IT OFF. SIX MONTHS LATER, IT STILL EXISTS. THIS HOUSE LEAKING WATER FROM THE BASEMENT AND WE COULD NOT GET INSIDE BECAUSE THE DOORS WERE LOCKED. THE CITY TOLD US ABOUT THIS ONE BECAUSE IT HAS A HANDLE ON WHERE THE PROBLEMS ARE. WATER DEPARTMENT DEPUTY DIRECTOR SAID THE CITY IS STARTING TO STEM THE TIDE. SEVERAL YEARS AGO, THERE WERE LITERALLY THOUSANDS OF VACANT ABANDONED FLOODINGS, AND NOW DOWN TO A CURRENT NUMBER. WE RECEIVE ABOUT 17 COMPLAINTS A DAY. Rod: HERE'S A PHONE NUMBER: 313-267-7401. WITH THAT NUMBER, GET IMMEDIATE RESPONSE TO ANY ABANDONED HOME LEAKING WATER. AND ANOTHER RED TAPE CUTTER. THE CREWS ARE WALKING THE BLOCK AND FINDING AN ABANDONED VACANT AND FLOODING, THEY CAN RECORD IT IN THE SYSTEM AND DO THE WORK THERE. Rod: AND LET'S SHOW THAT YOU NUMBER AGAIN: 313-267-7401 AND WILL BE SHOWING UP ON CITY VEHICLES TO HELP YOU REMEMBER. AND THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT. SAY YOU WANT TO GET A HOUSE THAT HAS THE WATER COMING OUT OF THE BASEMENT AND FLOODING, YOU BREAK OUT YOUR PHONE WITH THE APP AND TAKE YOUR PICTURE, AND THEN WITH THE APP, YOU SEND YOUR PICTURE TO THE CITY AND THAT'S ALL YOU HAVE TO DO. WITH THE APP, THEY CAN PICK UP WHERE THE HOUSE IS AND THEY'LL BE ABLE TO GET THERE. IT'S ONE OF THOSE THINGS THAT THE CITY IS TRYING TO DO, TO BE

Then there is the simply astounding problem of Detroit’s wasted running water. With roughly 70,000 vacant homes and thousands more vacant businesses with little if any law enforcement attention paid, scrappers have had their way with this city. Their crimes at once so desperate and heartless they will steal the copper pipes from the basement and walk away with their metals and leave the water flooding the basement. The city water department’s communications and bureaucracy were so thick and unworkable no one knew how to manage the calls. The water would spill out into the street after filling the basement and run for months at a time.

Even more frustrating for everyone in Southeast Michigan who pay their water bills, the City of Detroit was incapable of figuring out where these homes were. If you called in with a report of running water, and if you did not call the right phone number the complaint was never properly processed. The city now admits it simply did not do the barest minimum in attacking the problem. This cost us all money, big money in increased water bills that have increased every year for the past decade.

Well, now that is in the process of changing. The Detroit Water and Sewer Department announced a plan that is at once simple common sense and high-tech wizardry. First the city now will have one single phone number to call to report this problem. That number is 313-267-7401. You will start to see it on city owned vehicles to help remind residents to call in problems they find. Then the water department’s work force has opted to change some of its work rules.

Now instead of chasing every work order as they come in, sending crews across the vast and often empty expanse of the City of Detroit inefficiently using man hours, the crews are now empowered. When they find water leaking in a basement they are told to assume scrappers have hit other homes in the neighborhood and walk the area streets to see if they can find another leaky basement. When they do they are allowed to fix that leak then and there without having to get permission.

One can only wonder how the practice of ignoring the rest of the block when they fix a leak started, but thankfully that will come to a screeching halt. Still the best part of this plan is soon to find its way to a cellphone near you. Yes, there is an app coming for running Detroit water. The technology so good, all you need to do is take the picture, send it to the city and you don’t even have to follow up. All of the locator information is imbedded in the photograph and the water department repair crews will be able to go right to the address and make the fix. That is culture shock you can easily learn to live with, as long as it gets released and it works when it arrives. [If there is anything we’ve learned about such things, it’s best to get excited AFTER we establish the system is functional, but there is some comfort in knowing it is coming.]

The City says there used to be thousands of these kinds of water leaks at any given time. It has attacked the problem with equipment and manpower over the past five or six years and now says it gets roughly 17 calls of this kind a day and as you read this 51 homes are leaking water awaiting a fix. But at least the city now is demonstrating an ability to get a handle on the scope of the problem and now plans to address it. That is bullet train style change in and of itself.

Now, we don’t want to get carried away here; though high technology can accelerate progress smartly it is going to take a lot more of it to make the kind of dramatic change this city needs. Detroit’s decline has been in many ways disheartening and complete.

The problems are massive and will take at least a generation of fixes of this kind to truly put the city on the right trajectory for an optimistic future this city deserves. As the Chinese proverbs tell us, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Today Detroit made two.

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